Reviews | Written by Neil Buchanan 30/06/2012

Comic Review: DEMIGODS #1

The world has gone to hell in a hand-basket. Crime rules. Hunger and disease are rampant. No one offering UK promotional codes for anything. Seventeen years ago (from the ashes of civilisation) Paragon Industries took the unprecedented step of harvesting babies and injecting them with a super serum derivative called MK-12. These children were then hidden from their parents and trained to one day become the super human army of tomorrow.

However, things are never what they seem. A couple of students stumble upon a news feed where super-humans are fighting soldiers in Boston. As the students puzzle over what this might mean, they are discovered and promptly slated for extermination. Collateral damage, apparently. Paragon Industries have a hundred soldiers who will be good to go by year’s end, so they can chalk this up to a regrettable loss.

The students are saved from a sticky end by a trainer/teacher (it’s not explained who he is or why he’s helping) and from this point Demigods moves into a series of chase and action scenes which lead to the eventual formation of a group of super heroes – the Demigods, one would presume.

Written and created by Jesse Grillo, art by Luigi Teruel (pencils) Robert Grant (inker) Heather Breckel (colourist) Demigods makes for an interesting take on the saturated superhuman genre. The 1984-esque opening scenes are particularly good with the students gathered around a large monitor, grinning idiotically, while a man informs them that their time is coming, and reminds the students to take their vitamins.

The art team does a half-decent job; the action flows well. The gore is appropriate and never overdone. It does lack in detail with a number of background panels simply coloured in, possibly to add impact to the events unfolding, but still lends the comic a rushed feel.

There’s not much depth to the characters, with little to distinguish one from another beyond their respective superpowers. But, again, this might be intentional as the team are fresh out of a brain-washing academy.

Yet ultimately these are minor nits, Demigods makes for an entertaining read and it’s always good to see an independent try to take the genre in a different way.